Statement by H.E. Dr. Nkosazana C. Dlamini Zuma

AFRICAN UNION
UNION AFRICAINE
UNIÃO AFRICANA
Mandela: A Pan African Hero
Statement by H.E. Dr. Nkosazana C. Dlamini Zuma
Chairperson of the African Union Commission at the
African Union Memorial for
President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Au Conference Centre, Addis Ababa
8 December 2013
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Mandela: A Pan African Hero.
Statement of AU Commission Chairperson, Dr. Dlamini Zuma at the AU memorial
Service in honour of Nelson Rolohlahla Mandela, 8 December, Addis Ababa
A life shaped in struggle
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s life must be understood in the context of the
struggle of South African and African people, and indeed the struggle of
oppressed peoples everywhere.
When Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in the village of Mvezo,
Transkei on 18 July 1918, what was known during the First World War
as the ‘Africa Campaign’ just ended a year earlier. This campaign
affected Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya,
Uganda and the DR Congo in the east and on the west Nambia, Togo,
Cameroon and Ghana. Its conclusion was yet another reshuffling of
African territories by colonial powers after the Berlin Conference of 1884.
In Madiba’s birth-place of South Africa, it was five years after the
introduction of the infamous Land Act of 1913, an event which saw 80%
of the population crammed into 13% of the country, making the majority
of South Africans in the words of Sol T Plaatje, a pharia in the land of
their birth.
This world of colonialism and apartheid into which he was born, and the
resistance of the peoples of this continent, are what shaped Mandela.
History is on the side of the oppressed
As one of the young militants of the ANC Youth League during the
1940’s, along with Anton Lembede, Oliver Tambo, Bertha Gxowa, Walter
Sisulu, Adelaide Tambo, Joe Matthews and others; Madiba and his
peers knew that the South African struggles were closely linked to
struggles across Africa, and indeed the world.
Addressing the 1951 Annual Congress of the ANC Youth League as its
President, Mandela observed:
In common with people all over the world, humanity in Africa is
fighting the forces (of colonialism).
In the Gold Coast a situation exists which is capable of being
translated into complete victory for the people.
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[Events] in Nigeria are leading to a similar situation.
In French West Africa, the Democratic Rally of African People is
leading the people into what is virtually open war against the
French imperialists.
In Egypt the heroic struggle is being waged which must receive the
support of all genuine anti-imperialist forces...
In Uganda the leaders of the Bataka Association who were
condemned to fourteen years of imprisonment have had to be
released as a result of the attitude of the masses.
In Central Africa the people saw through the tricks of the British
imperialists who sought to foist a bogus federation scheme on
them.
History is on the side of the oppressed.
The growing Pan African movement, the increasing number of
independent African countries and the unflinching support and solidarity
to the struggles of those still under the yoke of oppression was a further
source of inspiration, as Madiba acknowledged when he addressed the
Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa in Accra in
1962:
It is true that world opinion against the policies of the South African
government has hardened considerably in recent years. The All
African People's Conference in 1958, the Conference of
Independent African States held in and the conferences at
Casablanca and Monrovia last year, as well as the Lagos
Conference this month, passed militant resolutions in which they
sharply condemned and rejected the racial policies of the South
African government.
It has become clear to us that the whole of Africa is unanimously
behind the move to ensure effective economic and diplomatic
sanctions against the South African government.
His addresss continued:
No less a danger to White minority rule and a guarantee of ultimate
victory for us is the freedom struggle that is raging furiously beyond
the borders of the South African territory; the rapid progress of
Kenya, Uganda, and Zanzibar towards independence; the victories
gained by the Nyasaland Malawi Congress; the unabated
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determination of Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence
Party (UNIP); the courage displayed by the freedom fighters of the
Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), successor to the now
banned National Democratic Party (NDP); the gallantry of the
African crusaders in the Angolan war of liberation and the storm
clouds forming around the excesses of Portuguese repression in
Mozambique; the growing power of the independence movements
in South-West Africa and the emergence of powerful political
organisations in the High Commission territories. All these are
forces which cannot compromise with White domination anywhere.
When Mandela was therefore send by the ANC in 1962 to mobilise
support for South Africa’s turn to armed struggle, he knew that as he
travelled to Ethiopia, Algeria, Guinea and others African states, that he
will find many homes. Indeed, over the next few decades of difficult
struggles, our continent became home to freedom fighters from across
Southern Africa, including myself.
The unflinching Pan Africanism of Mandela and his peers across Africa
inspired generations, as Proffessor Thandikwe Mkandawire wrote on his
blog yesterday:
The post-World War II era produced some memorable African
leaders who grace the pantheon of champions of the African
liberation struggle. There is little doubt that Nelson “Madiba”
Mandela ranked among the best of these.
The late fifties was an era of trials and detentions in the colonies.
The Treason Trial, which took place from 1956 to 1961, was
closely followed by those of my generation largely through Drum
Magazine. Mandela was one of 156 people arrested and tried for
high treason.
During this period (other) leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta, Dr
Hastings Banda, Kenneth Kaunda, Robert Mugabe and Joshua
Nkomo were in and out of courts, detentions centres or prison.
Some, like Patrice Lumumba, were assassinated.
Prof Mkandawire also highlights how these leaders and movements
influenced each other. He argues, for example that
“Important though… (Madiba’s commitment to reconciliation) was
in light of the racial animosity and fears that apartheid had
generated, it was not unique to Mandela.
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From its original articulation by Jomo Kenyatta, “reconciliation”
became the slogan of all the leading nationalist movements in
white settler-dominated countries.
As the first democratic and non-racial President of South Africa, when
the country took its place amongst the community of free African nations,
Madiba addressed the OAU Summit of Heads of State and Government
in June 1994, paying tribute to our common Pan African struggles:
We are here today not to thank you, dear brothers and sisters,
because such thanks would be misplaced among fellowcombatants - we are here to salute and congratulate you for a
most magnificent and historical victory over an inhuman system
whose very name was tyranny, injustice and bigotry.
When the history of our struggle is written, it will tell a glorious tale
of African solidarity, of African's adherence to principles.
It will tell a moving story of the sacrifices that the peoples of our
continent made, to ensure that that intolerable insult to human
dignity, the apartheid crime against humanity, became a thing of
the past.
It will speak of the contributions of freedom - whose value is as
measureless as the gold between the soil of our country - the
contribution which all of Africa made, from the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea in the north, to the confluence of the Indian and
Atlantic Oceans in the south.
Africa shed her blood and surrendered the lives of her children so
that all her children could be free. She gave of her limited wealth
and resources so that all of Africa should be liberated. She opened
heart of hospitality and her head so full of wise counsel, so that we
should emerge victorious.
A million times, she put her hand to the plough that has now dug
up the encrusted burden of oppression that had accumulated for
centuries.
A universal struggle and icon
Many global headlines and statements since Thursday night spoke about
how Madiba changed the world. The outpourings of grieve and solidarity
from every corner of the world are testimony to the universality of the
freedoms Madiba fought, stood and sacrificed for.
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He called attention to this global nature of the struggle against apartheid
and colonialism during his acceptance address for the joint Nobel Peace
Prize with President FW De Klerk in Oslo in 1993:
We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the
millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system
whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression,
repression and the impoverishment of an entire people.
I am also here today as a representative of the millions of people
across the globe, the anti-apartheid movement, the governments
and organisations that joined with us, not to fight against South
Africa as a country or any of its peoples, but to oppose an inhuman
system and sue for a speedy end to the apartheid crime against
humanity.
These countless human beings, both inside and outside our
country, had the nobility of spirit to stand in the path of tyranny and
injustice, without seeking selfish gain.
They recognised that an injury to one is an injury to all and
therefore acted together in defence of justice and a common
human decency.
Madiba returned to this theme when he addressed the United Nations
General Assembly for the first time as President of South Africa in
October 1994:
It surely must be one of the great ironies of our age that this august
Assembly is addressed, for the first time in its 49 years, by a South
African head of state drawn from among the African majority of
what is an African country.
Future generations will find it strange in the extreme that it was
only so late in the 20th century that it was possible for our
delegation to take its seat in the Assembly, recognized both by our
people and the nations of the world as the legitimate
representative of the people of our country.
We stand here today to salute the United Nations Organization and
its member states, both singly and collectively, for joining forces
with the masses of our people in a common struggle that has
brought about our emancipation and pushed back the frontiers of
racism.
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The millions of our people say thank you and thank you again that
the respect for your own dignity as human beings inspired you to
act to ensure the restoration of our dignity as well.
We have together traversed a course which we are convinced has
strengthened human solidarity in general and reinforced the bonds
of friendship between our people and the nations of the world.
This dates back to the early days when India put the question of
racism in South Africa on your agenda, to the moment when the
world community, as represented here, could adopt consensus
resolutions against apartheid, with none dissenting.
A new era for Africa
There is no question that the defeat of apartheid colonialism in Namibia
and South Africa during the early 1990’s, ushered in a new era in the
history of our continent.
The mission of the founding generations of the Organisation of African
Unity, to rid Africa of the yoke of colonialism and oppression, was, with
the exception of Western Sahara, indeed completed.
Thus President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, implored the OAU Assembly
of Heads of State and Government in June 1994:
If freedom was the crown which the fighters of liberation sought to
place on the head of mother Africa, let the upliftment, the
happiness, prosperity and comfort of her children be the jewel of
the crown.
And indeed, during the years that followed, the upliftment, happiness,
prosperity and comfort of Afica’s children was his main pre-occupation,
as President of a democratic South Africa and as an African.
At the OAU Ouagadougou Assembly of Heads of State and Government
in 1998, after he announced that he will not seek a second term as
President of South Africa, Mandela outlined the tasks that lay ahead:
As we were convinced when we established this Organisation 35
years ago, the successor generation can and must reaffirm this,
that our countries and peoples are bound together by the reality of
a common destiny for our Continent.
It must therefore deal in practical ways with the consequences of
this fundamental determination.
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Among other things, it must win the war in terms of which victory
we, as African countries, would not allow ourselves to be sucked
into a fight among the powerless for power over one another.
None of us is a superstar and none can succeed without the
success of the other.
That common destiny requires that we should treat the question of
peace and stability on or Continent as a common challenge.
President Mandela lived up to this common challenge, with his
involvement in the peace processes, not only in the Democratic Republic
of Congo, but also in Burundi and Libya. In his words, “it is easy to break
down and destroy. The real heroes are those who make peace and
build.”
Madiba’s commitment to African development and prosperity was
unwavering. In his speech to the Ouagoudougou Summit in 1998 he
therefore urged:
Again, none can gainsay the fact that our cooperation and
integration is a fundamental precondition of the economic success
of each of our countries, as is the pursuit of people-centred
economic policies in each of our countries.
We must therefore build on the decisions we have taken about the
African Economic Community as well as the reality of the regional
economic units we have formed in various parts of our Continent.
Among the issues on our agenda … (must) be the African debt,
infrastructure development, capacity building and greater African
participation in the world economy.
Tata Madiba through struggles came to recognized the important
contribution of women. It was thus under his Presidency that the ANC
introduced a quote of thirty percent for women.
Madiba also spoke about Africa participation in the information
communications revolution:
The importance of the fact of African interdependence, and its
practical recognition by ourselves, found expression in the Africa
Telecom `98 Forum … (that) emerged with a concrete, practicable
and exciting programme to move our Continent onto the
information super-highway.
Similarly, our Education Ministers have taken decisions to increase
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access by our youth to one another's institutions of higher
education. This is another concrete initiative based on the
fundamental concept of a common African destiny which we, as
the political leaders of our Continent, must support practically.
We must also address the important question of exchanges among
ourselves in the areas of science, technology and engineering and
all other academic disciplines in general.
Among other things, we must attract back into the Continent the
very many talented intellectuals who left Africa's shores to look for
opportunities in the countries of the North, which offered them
security and the possibility to advance their professional careers.
Similarly, we must work systematically to build people-to-people
relations among our nations, to entrench the understanding that,
as Africans, we are one people who share a common destiny.
Madiba continued,
Our common African culture allows me to say to those in this
august Assembly, who are younger than the veterans such as
Robert Mugabe, Sam Nujoma, Abdou Diouf and myself, that we
charge you with the responsibility to lead our peoples and
Continent into the new world of the next century - which must be
an African Century -during which all our people will be freed of the
bitterness born of the marginalisation and degradation of our proud
Continent of Africa.
Let all of us repeat and commit ourselves to the perspective
represented by the clarion call; The struggle continues and victory
is certain! Our future as the ordinary masses of Africa is in your
hands!
As we mourn and celebrate the life of this giant and hero of Pan
Africanism, we recall the commitments we made at the 50th Anniversary
Summit in our Solemn Declaration in May this year, to ensure an Africa
that is integrated, people-centred, peaceful and taking its rightful place in
the world.
We must therefore, as we concretise our Agenda 2063, accelerate
progress on all those tasks entrusted by Madiba to our generations of
Africans.
Fellow Africans and Peace-loving brothers and sisters of the world,
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Let me take this opportunity, on behalf of the African Union Commission,
to thank everyone who wished Madiba well during his prolonged illness,
including the medical team in South Africa who looked after his wellbeing.
We have been overwhelmed with messages of condolences and support
from across our continent and the world.
As we remember Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, we take comfort from the
words of Nikolai Ostrovsky when he said:
“Man’s dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and
he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years,
never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past, so live
that dying he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to
the finest cause in all the world-the fight for the liberation of
mankind”
As the African Union Commission, we convey our sincerest condolences
to the Mandela family, and thank them for lending him to the service of
humanity.
President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, we thank you for the countless
sacrifices you made, including graciously preparing us for a time when
you will no longer be with us.
You have lived your life well. You bequeathed us with a better world than
the one into which you were born.
You have now joined the galaxy of heroes, heroines and the founders of
the Pan African movement such Marcus Garvey, Julius Nyerere, Oliver
Tambo, WEB Dub Bois, Josina Machel, Mahatma Ghandi, Rosa Parks,
Augustina Neto, Bishop Trevor Huddlestone, Malcom X, Che Guevara,
Meles Zenawi, Ahmed Ben Bella, Kwame Nkhruma, Amilcar Cabral,
Eduardo Modlane, Toussaint Louverture, Miriam Makeba, Martin Luther
King, Walter Sisulu. Thomas Sankara and many, many more.
You are joining those who founded the OAU 50 years ago, those who
founded the Pan African Women’s Organisation (PAWO) 51 years ago
and those who formed the African National Congress 101 years ago.
Hamba Kahle Tata Madiba!
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